Libya

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Daniel Kawczynski

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I want to address precisely that point in my remarks. There seems to be a complete disjuncture between what we want to happen with the people we want to back for our own reasons—they could have a legitimacy or legal primacy—and what is happening on the ground. That has been a constant feature of the western approach to the area. We have our own ideals and beliefs about the process, the rule of law and what we think should happen, but when we look on the ground at the instrumentalities, as Woodrow Wilson used to call them, we see a complete mismatch. The people whom we want to be in charge—the people whom we believe have legitimacy—have very little capacity to enforce their will and ensure that their writ is run through the country we hope they can rule. That fundamental problem always comes up.

Haftar represents Operation Dignity. He has set himself up as an anti-Islamist strongman. There is no doubt that he is a controversial figure, but it is difficult to envisage a stable Libya without his active participation. He simply has a lot of muscle and many forces. He controls a significant portion of the country, particularly in the east. A few weeks ago we discovered that his forces took over a lot of the oil installations at the beginning of September. He has to come round the table if we are to reach a satisfactory solution.

There have been dark rumblings in regard to Haftar. We have read many times that the French secret service is supporting him. They are rumours, but it is important that we know what is being said. We also know that allies, including our friends in Egypt and the Egyptian Government, are openly supporting Haftar. The United Arab Emirates is broadly in support of his objectives. Many of our allies are openly or covertly supporting General Haftar, yet we stick to this idea, perhaps rightly, that the GNA is the legitimately constituted Government of Libya.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend is spending time talking about General Haftar. Our Government’s line has repeatedly been for the past five years, “We must wait for a Government of National Accord and national unity.” It is clearly evident after five years that that will not happen, and it is unrealistic to expect it. We should support General Haftar to bring peace and stability to the country.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I am trying to say—in many ways, it is the crux of this debate and nearly any debate about the middle east—that we have our own ideals and our own sense of what the rule of law and due process are, yet the realities on the ground in many instances bear no relation to the theoretical aspirations and structures that the international community constructs. I am trying to grope towards some way in which we can accommodate or harmonise our intellectual construct and method with what is happening on the ground.

The reality is that there are something like 1,700 militias. General Haftar is probably the biggest military presence, and many of our allies openly support him. My hon. Friend asks an interesting question: why do we not just support General Haftar? I do not propose to answer that definitely today. It is a difficult question and there are lots of balancing factors. The fact is that General Haftar is not universally popular. We have big issues with militias in Misrata. A number of other tribes on the western side have said openly that they are not prepared to tolerate rule by him. Their belief is that, if we support Haftar, we will be substituting one military dictator for the former military dictator, Gaddafi.

Be that as it may, I want to talk about my hon. Friend’s suggestion. Our strategy has not moved the country forward in five years. The financial situation is such that whatever oil reserves Libya had are rapidly dwindling. Libya’s GDP was something like $75 billion in 2011 and is now something like $41 billion—it is roughly of that order; that figure is from a couple of years ago, but it is the latest we have. We are talking about an economy that has essentially halved in five years. GDP per capita was something like $12,500 in 2011, at which point Libya was one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. It was seeing some degree of material progress. Today, GDP per capita is about $7,000. No country in Europe has seen such a diminution of its wealth, including Greece. That has huge implications for the security situation in the region and outside.

Not only have people become a lot poorer, but the political institutions in many instances have broken down. Whatever Gaddafi’s strengths and weaknesses were—let’s face it, he was a tyrant—he had a degree of control over the country’s borders. Those who know geography will know that Libya is an enormous country with something like 4,000 miles of borders. To stem the flow of migration, it was very important that a centrally constituted Government—a central authority—could control the borders. That has now completely collapsed, which is why hundreds if not thousands of people come from very poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa through Libya and find themselves on boats in the Mediterranean going to Italy, in many instances ending their lives there.

I did not want to talk about the EU—we have had plenty of debates in this place about it—but one of the failures it needs to address is the lack of a co-ordinated plan for Libya. There is no point pretending it is going to go away, because it is not. The problem will get worse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, but I am told that one of the reasons why the Libyans view western involvement with such scepticism is that 2011 was not this country’s finest hour. I agree substantially with many of the findings in the Foreign Affairs Committee report. We went in there, but we did not have a plan or a follow-through. Given that context, it is not surprising that Libyans are sceptical.

Our ideals—what we want to happen—and what we can actually do are often completely different. I completely understand the support for the Government of National Accord, but it is difficult to see how we can empower them to take control of the country. None of the militias that one reads about—Haftar and Operation Dignity, Libya Dawn, ISIS and various al-Qaeda militias—are GNA forces. They are not under the control of the Government of National Accord, yet we carry on in a fantasy world in which they are the official, legal Government and we are going to support them. I totally understand those pious words, but nothing is happening on the ground.

We can go on like this. I am sure that in five years’ time I, or some new MPs, will take up the issue. We can go on forever and a day talking about what is going on, but in this debate I want to say, “Look, this is a big problem. What are we going to do about it?” I do not propose any definitive answers, but it is highly important that MPs have the opportunity to speak and think about these issues. We do very little thinking in this place; we do a lot of talking, posturing and virtue-signalling, but as parliamentarians we need to engage our minds critically with these problems.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

My hon. Friend said that 2011 was not our finest hour. May I remind him—I am sure he remembers this very clearly—that only one Conservative Member of Parliament voted against military action: our colleague from the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron)? Does he agree that we need to learn from that terrible mistake? We saw on our television screens constant coverage of the alleged bloodbath that would ensue if Gaddafi was not stopped. We reacted quickly without thinking about the consequences and without the follow-through that was needed.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

That is a very timely intervention, because that is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. For far too long, we have had emotional responses to situations. I remember the debate very vividly, although I was a new Member of Parliament and less experienced and less versed in issues relating to the middle east then. We talked a lot about the humanitarian crisis and what we needed to do to intervene to stop the potential bloodbath. All of that was well understood, but we did not stop and think.